


i'll be leaving in the morning come the white wine and bitter sunlight

by atlantisairlock



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Bechdel Test Pass, F/F, Heavy Angst, New Year's Eve, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-04 09:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3062660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What I say here doesn't leave this room," Captain Holt warns, and they all nod gravely. "Detective Rosa Diaz is being sent undercover with the FBI to expose a major drug trafficking ring."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. everything inside your circle starts to overflow

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'beating heart' by ellie goulding.

 

"What I say here doesn't leave this room," Captain Holt warns, and they all nod gravely. "Detective Rosa Diaz is being sent undercover with the FBI to expose a major drug trafficking ring." 

The absolute silence that settles over the office is a majestic thing, and Holt allows it to sink in for about three seconds before he continues. "Detective Diaz's official story is that she's been fired from the NYPD for disorderly conduct and excessive violence. There will be no contact between us until the operation is over, which the FBI estimates will take six months. Until then, it is imperative that we take precautions to corroborate the story and ensure her cover is not blown. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," they all chorus, and Rosa can feel Amy's eyes on her.

She's not surprised when the meeting ends, and Amy corners her in Babylon all wrinkled brow and bitten lip. "You _have_ to come back safe, okay?"

She doesn't like dealing with feelings and all that other mushy crap, but Rosa can't help but feel a rush of affection. She accompanies a brief kiss to Amy's forehead with a confident statement of "I will, dummy." 

The smile on Amy's face is something she wants to remember for the rest of her life. 

 

 

She doesn't like dealing with feelings, and she downright hates all the mushy crap.

That doesn't stop her from calling Amy one more time before she goes in.

 _I love you,_ she says quietly, and she swears she can hear Amy smile over the line, that same smile she'll never forget. 

 

 

It is all she thinks of five months later, when the gunshots are an orchestra around her and all she sees is her blood.

 

 

It's New Year's Eve. It's supposed to be a day where the precinct gets together and messes around and gets drunk and does stupid things as a family. Every New Year's Eve with the Nine-Nine is wonderful, and whenever she steps into the office on the 31st of December she always gets a good feeling about the day.

But not this time.

The moment Amy pushes the gate open it just...  _settles._ Like the click of handcuffs, the shift of tectonic plates, and for a moment everything blurs before her eyes and she can't breathe. The colours, the air, the  _world_ is all wrong.

The captain's  _voice_ sounds wrong when he calls her. "Santiago, I'd like a word with you."

And every nerve ending in Amy's body is screaming out for her to turn tail and run out of the precinct, because she knows. She just  _knows._ The moment she steps in there, nothing will be the same. She doesn't respond for a long minute, clenching her fists and squeezing her eyes shut and begging, praying that she can just wake up in her bed and everything will be different. It'll be  _okay._

But then her feet move of their own accord - she's walking into the captain's office with a huge smile on her face and her voice is chirpy, two tones too high. She won't look at Gina, who's kicking her wastebasket and staring blankly at her feet. She won't look at Jake, sitting on the lumpy black sofa pushed up against the wall just under the blinds, his eyes red and fists clenched. She won't.

It'll be okay. It will. 

She's never heard Holt speak in anything but his usual monotone. This is different. This is -

"Detective Santiago. Please, sit down."

_No. No, no, no -_

"You need to know that... six hours prior - "

"I was chasing after the perp, sir!" The words come out in a rush, and her nails are digging into her palm but she forces herself to sound perky. "I know, I may have let him get away, but protocol says we're not allowed to shoot at unarmed civilians, and he was leaping over the wall and I couldn't get to him because, ugh, I haven't been keeping up with my fitness routine, and I couldn't make the jump - "

"Amy." Jake speaks up from the corner of the room, voice hoarse and scratchy. "Amy,  _listen_ \- "

She can't stop babbling. She can't stop speaking, because she knows the moment she does everything will come crashing down and maybe as long as she just keeps talking it's all going to be all right. _It'll be okay. It'll be okay. It'll be okay._  "I've got him tracked down, and I have a reliable source that tells me he's going to make a move tonight at the club two blocks down, so I can get in there and it'll definitely be open-and-shut this time, I will  _definitely_ get him in cuffs right here in the precinct and that will put an end to the Bouchard Burglar, I know it - "

"Santiago." There's a tremor in Holt's voice, and it reverberates through her, shockwaves down her spine, and everything is falling apart inside her.  _No. No. No._

It comes out raspier than she wants it to. " _Please_ don't say it. Please, no. Please."

"I'm sorry, Santiago - "

_You have to come back safe, okay?_

"There were complications - a gunfight ensued - "

_I will, dummy._

"Detective Diaz is - "

_I love you._

Amy runs. 

 

 

The morgue is cold and silent. Amy doesn't make it beyond tugging the sheet down just enough to see her face before she has to sprint to the bathroom and throw up.

Charles is the one who finds her in Babylon a while later, slumped over patterned tiles and white marble, and he quietly brings Jake over so they can manoeuvre her into a cab back home. 

She doesn't cry.

 

 

Rosa gets the whole nine yards, everyone dons black, and at least a hundred officers turn up at the funeral in a sign of respect. They've busted the biggest drug trafficking syndicate they've ever been up against, Holt declares, and Rosa's sacrifice will never be forgotten. 

Her family is stoic, stiff. Charles cries without abandon. Jake bites his lip and affixes his gaze on something in the distance and doesn't move an inch when the tears start rolling down his face. Gina's face is a carefully crafted mask of blankness, but Amy sees the way her fingers are wrapped tight around Terry's wrist, clutching for something in the tidal wave of fear and grief. 

Amy tilts her chin to stare at the sky, cloudless and a blanket of light blue. She doesn't cry until the gun goes off, until she's left alone, and then she collapses on her knees and rips at the sod with her fingers till they're bruised and stained with dirt and she cries, she cries until there's nothing left to give. 

 

 

Rosa's father drops by the precinct after the funeral and passes her a paper bag which contains what she had on her person when she was shot. At first Amy pushes it away, shakes her head and tells him that he should be the one keeping his daughter's belongings. He has lost so much. How can he possibly give anything more away?

The older man has a strength in his eyes that Amy finds all-too-familiar and it feels like a punch in the gut.  _You have lost a great deal, as well,_ he reminds her, and this time Amy does accept the bag.

She manages to keep her composure intact until she holds the jacket in her arms, the leather soft beneath her fingers, and then she's gone. 

 

 

Amy's wardrobe has exactly zero outfits that match a black leather biker jacket.

She wears it every single day, regardless.

 

 

The days drag on into weeks, into months, and then suddenly -

suddenly -

 

 

_In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. - Robert Frost_

 

 

She closes cases, goes out on stakeouts with Jake, gets food recommendations from Charles, discusses union-related things with Captain Holt, sends Gina emoji-filled texts, babysits Cagney and Lacey for Terry, rolls her eyes and groans at Scully and Hitchcock. Things change, people change, times change, and somewhere in between everything, she makes Captain.

"Wait, wait, wait," Jake yells at her when they're throwing her a farewell party in the precinct, some many years later. "Let me do this for the last time,  _ever._ " He takes a deep, dramatic breath and rolls it off his tongue. "De-tecccc-tive  _Saaaaan_ -tiago.  _Whoop!_ " He slams his fist into his palm, hooting. "You're never going to be called that ever again, Amy! Now it's - "

 _"Captain Santiago,"_ they all chorus, and Amy swears she hears Rosa's voice somewhere in the swell. 

 

 

The first time she sets foot into her office, her new precinct, introduces herself to the detectives under her charge, settles into the chair -

It's not as sweet as she always imagined.

It's not.

 

 

And then it's another New Year's Eve and she's still placing flowers on Rosa's grave every 31st December, but this time she doesn't get the chance. 

_call an ambulance! is someone here a doctor? get help, stay calm, captain, hold on... officer down officer down officer down! move, move out of the way, we're coming amy -_

She can't move. She can't speak. She can't breathe. 

Amy wonders if this was what it was like for Rosa. Amy wonders if she was scared.

 

 

_I was._

"..."

" _Rosa?_ "

 

 

And she's not really speaking, of course, Amy knows what's going on, she's dying, she's dying, it hurts, everything hurts and oh god, did she do okay? did she do enough as a detective? as a captain? as a friend and sister and daughter and did she make good with her lot in life? she hasn't returned that flash drive she borrowed from Jake, he's never going to be able to find it, and she promised to tutor Cagney in English next week, and how about her brothers? they've only got one sister, they'll never make it when it's just them, and -

 

 

_It's okay._

"Rosa?..."

_It's me._

"Where are you?"

_It's okay, Amy. I'm here._

"Did I... did I do okay? Was I good enough?"

_Of course you did._

"Was I a good detective? A good captain?"

_You were the best._

"Did you - did you see me? From... wherever you were?"

_I did. You were wonderful, Amy. You did so well._

 

 

She's crying now, a tear slipping down her cheek, everything's turning to static. Somewhere far, far away she can hear vague screams -  _i'm losing her, oxygen, hang on, the ambulance is here, cpr, can someone do cpr? please, save her! we're losing her -_

 

 

"I can't - I can't die now. What about Jake? He's never going to be able to find that flash drive."

"Or Terry? He's going to be so mad that I can't tutor Cagney."

"Or Sophia, I promised I would run through a case with her - "

_They'll be okay. All of them._

"All our friends?"

_All of them._

breathe. breathe. breathe.  

"I'm scared."

_I know._

"What now?"

_Now you come home._

"Will you stay with me?"

_Always._

 

 

Amy takes a deep breath and lets go.

 

 

"Hey. I've been waiting for you." 

_"Rosa...?"_

"Welcome home, dummy. Welcome home." 


	2. before you break, you have to shed your armor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath, or, the rest of the Nine-Nine.

When the phone rings, Holt immediately puts in on speakerphone. He's swamped by paperwork; there's no time to hold a handset to his ear. "NYPD, 99th Precinct, Captain Raymond Holt speaking."

"Raymond, the operation's over. We got them six hours ago."

Ah, the FBI, one entire month ahead of schedule. Holt sits up straighter in his chair, feeling a swell of pride at the thought of one of his detectives having contributed significantly to the operation. "My congratulations. When will Detective Diaz be returning?"

The silence lasts so long that for a moment, he thinks the connection's been cut - of course the other possibility doesn't run through his head, because it's unthinkable. "Are you there?"

"I'm sorry. There was... there were complications. It was supposed to be open-and-shut..."

The door to the office opens, and Gina saunters in with her trademark lazy grin on her face. Her mouth opens to drawl out _heeeeey, Captain_ , but then the rest of the message comes through on the line.

"But then we got... there were more than we expected. There was a gunfight. Detective Diaz didn't make it."

Gina goes entirely still, and her expression contorts into one of denial before she meets Holt's eyes, and she knows the truth. 

She dumps the files she's holding haphazardly on the sofa and bolts out of the office.

He lets her.

 

 

It takes five seconds, blurred before her eyes, before she knows where she's going and who she's finding. She pushes her way out of the bullpen, and thank god, she finds Jake returning from his coffee run before she can begin to cry. 

He's grown up beside her. He knows from one single movement or expression how she's feeling. When she skids to a stop in front of him, Jake's brows furrow. "Gina? What's wrong?"

She's vain and she's arrogant and despite everything, Gina feels a clench in her throat because Rosa was her friend. The whole of the Nine-Nine are her friends and they truly care about her the way nobody's ever done and this is -

"You need to go and talk to Holt, _right now."_

She watches him run.

 

 

Half a minute after Jake turns the corner back to the bullpen, Terry finds Gina crouched in a corridor looking blankly at the wall. It doesn't take a genius to know that something's wrong, especially when he gently brings her to her feet and Gina doesn't even say a word. He gets her seated at her chair before he kneels in front of her and asks if she's okay. 

"Rosa's dead," Gina answers in her usual blunt fashion. "She got shot while undercover."

The windowpanes of Captain Holt's office shudder, and he recognises Jake's hoarse scream even if it's muffled by drywall. Something falls deep inside him, folds in on itself. 

He's unquestionably the strongest person in the Nine-Nine, but Terry feels his knees go weak.

 

 

Holt seems like he's expecting Jake to crash into the office, eyes wide, expression a medley of befuddlement, worry and surprise. "Gina said - "

"Peralta. Would you like to sit down?"

Jake flops onto the sofa beside the mess of files. "Okay..." Holt looks perfectly composed, but then again, that doesn't say much. "What's wrong?"

"Detective Diaz's stint with the FBI is over."

He whistles, grinning. "Ni-iiice. That was quick. It's been pretty boring without Rosa in here." His smile fades when Holt meets his gaze steadily, unflinching. "Wait..."

"She was shot, Peralta. She died of her injuries. Rosa won't be back."

But he can't hear Holt, can't hear him because it's just whirling in his mind.  _You better come back in one piece,_  and _Shut up, Jake, I'll be fine. A thousand pushups._ And he'd smiled at that, because he knew he could trust Rosa with his life. 

"Dammit, Diaz," Jake seethes under his breath, lowering his head so the Captain can't see his tears. He slams his fist into the window frame, ignoring the blood that blossoms on his knuckles. "You owe me a thousand pushups."

Holt asks if he'd like to be in the office when he breaks the news to Amy, for comfort, because they're partners. He doesn't have a choice.

 

****

Charles surreptitiously watches Amy dart out of the Captain's office in a similar fashion as Gina did earlier, and Jake leave a few moments after her with too-bright eyes and hands shoved into his pockets. Without hesitation he's out of his seat cornering his best friend. "Jake. What happened?"

He sounds throaty when he whispers _Rosa_ , and then he can't bring himself to say anything else but Charles already  _knows._ He lets Jake sit for a minute and just cry, a rare show of emotion, the devastation apparent on his face. 

"We need to go and find Amy," Charles tells him softly, and Jake nods with a look of relief, almost as if he's glad for something to do, something to occupy his mind other than  _this._

They find her in Babylon, slumped limply against the wall. Jake carries her out of there while he calls a cab to take her home. He waits until he's back at his desk before he lets himself crumple. 

He loved her, too. For real. Amy wasn't the only one.

 

 

Amy was never the only one.

**Author's Note:**

> podfics available [here](https://soundcloud.com/aceolotl/ill-be-leaving-in-the-morning-come-the-white-wine-and-bitter-sunlight) and [here](https://soundcloud.com/aceolotl/before-you-break-you-have-to-shed-your-armor)!


End file.
